The closed beta for Mirror's Edge Catalyst, the prequel (reboot?) to EA DICE's 2008 freerunning FPS Mirror's Edge began last Friday April and goes through tomorrow morning (Tuesday, April 26th). The beta testing consists of the first four stages (I recall reading that fact somewhere and it's not mentioned in the email I received, but we'll go with that fact, at least for now).
I should probably also mention now that there was no NDA regarding sharing any information from this weeks beta. The odd part about this though, was that it wasn't mentioned anywhere in any of the agreements and terms of service prior to downloading and playing the game. I actually had to search the official forums and found a link to a tweet from the game about being allowed to share anything and everything that we were able to experience.
Before we get to the actual beta-ing, I feel it important to mention that Mirror's Edge Catalyst, presently at least the beta, was only available through EA's game client Origin. I don't know if it will remain an exclusive, but I feel that it will be since there have been plenty of EA PC games to come out recently that are only available through Origin.
So let's get down to sharing some screenshots since I don't have any video of my lacking playthrough.
Well, as you can see, I had the game crash on me, and it was pretty early on too. I noticed that the game was windowed and once the opening cut scene seamlessly transitioned to being able to play, I immediately went into the setting to change some things around. First off was to invert the y-axis (as always) and then I went to change from windowed to full screen. Apparently something, somewhere didn't like that idea and the game crashed. As you can see though, I had vertical sync disabled (default) and the game is set to medium (default, at least for me) and I figured that was fine. Which actually worked out fine since I was able to take a number of screenshots, which I apparently wasn't able to do while playing Dead Space 3 (article to be coming. . . soon?).
So, like the first Mirror's Edge, this one is all first person, and while it's been almost two years since I first played and reviewed the game, I won't be making a lot of comparisons, but there will be a couple. The first one being that I've noticed that EA DICE has streamlined the fighting mechanic. In the first game, even going up against two attackers could be a challenge. Here, I feel that there are more options in how to attack and that the game is more lenient, at least in the earlier stages.
The above screenshot takes place during the tutorial stage, which like the first game, throws a lot at you, especially during the combat simulator. I've noticed that the areas where you can/are expected to run up/across/along walls are marked by shoe scuff marks, which you can kind of make out above. You also have a red image that shows you a suggested path to take, and in the later stages, it becomes a ghostly voxel-ated apparition (referred to in-game as an "echo") that shows your path. Don't worry, there are still plenty of red highlighted objects that show what you are able to grab on to and leap from. Regarding the fighting tutorial, I was able to make it through, but there were a number of attacks that took me a number of tries to get right, like side stepping (after running at) two guys, and kicking one guard into another while in a tight-ish corridor/hallway/corner office.
And in case you were wondering, yes, there is a helicopter that spots you while you're in one of the starter buildings. I honestly don't recall it firing upon me, although I was terrified that it would. Perhaps its placement was to install a sense of fear for people who played through the first game and became quickly annoyed at the sight/sound of those hunks of hovering death.
Because this game takes place before the first Mirror's Edge (although how much time is between the two games, I'm not sure), Faith (the playable character, whom I apparently failed to mention until just now) does not have all of the same skills as you start out with in the first game. Here, you are unable to do the fancy roll after jumping from a height and you can't leap from one wall run to another.
You can however learn those abilities. I think that this typical RPG mechanic works well in this instance. As it's supposed to be early enough in Faith's "career" that she's not the parkouring bad ass that you play in the first game, she had to learn those skills at some point. As you can see above, there are quite a few already filled in grey blocks and not too many red ones (able to learn) and white blocks (can learn in the future with enough earned XP.
And as far as RPG elements go, you are also given an overworld map of sorts that shows the route to your next mission and other available missions in the area.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst feels a lot more open world than the first game, and I feel that that's a great way to have the game operate. Having the game operate this way, I didn't mind having to go inside a building doing an optional side mission because I knew that I would eventually get back outside to complete the main storyline. There was also a fair amount of backtracking, which again, I really liked because it allowed me to develop a better understanding of the world and the area, or at least the rooftops of the The City.
The game did crash on me at one other time. I was doing a side mission that involved taking some type of programming chip that had to do with tracking or surveillance, I fought two guards on a rooftop and the game froze. The background music continued, but the visuals stopped and I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del my way out as even Alt-F4 didn't work.
The only other bug-ish-type-thing that I witnessed, was that the sound appeared to be a second or two off with the video during some of the later cut scenes (which have moved away from the animation-style art and towards a realistic representation).
During the above conversation with Noah, the mouth movements were about a second slower than the audio. In another section, all I heard was Faith's voice responding to someone, presumably Noah, but there was no other voice present. These were the only noticeable times that the audio was not completely synced with the video.
All-in-all, I had a good time with the hour and-a-half I spent playing. I should also note that at the end of that time, I felt, "Yeah, that's a decent amount of time" and I put the game down. It wasn't that I had stopped having fun and I still wanted to explore a bit more, especially given the fact that this time around the world seemed a bit more open than in the original game. If the beginning of the game is any indication of the rest of the game, then it might be the first game that I actually buy on Origin; although probably after it goes on sale, because I'm cheap that way.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
P.S.
I realized I didn't cover anything about multiplayer, but that was because I didn't do anything that had to do with multiplayer. In fact, I never saw anything about multiplayer, which for me is fine because I'm not much of an online multiplayer. Dr. Potts had talked about having a race of sorts in his review, but from what I've read, there aren't any races scheduled, although leader-boards for time will be present, which should please speed runners (of which I am not one).
Oh, and with one last picture:
falling to your death is still a very real possibility, although this time around, I didn't hear the bone crunching sound effect as your shin bones shot up through your shoulder blades.
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